Choose how your firm will sell for revenues to flow

The purpose of competitive selling is to convince customers to switch loyalty immediately and buy your products. FILE PHOTO | NMG 

By MURORI KIUNGA

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Summary

• The purpose of competitive selling is to convince customers to switch loyalty immediately and buy your products. This works well in cases where the consumer or customer is also decision maker.

One of the common mistakes most start-ups and experienced firms make is failing to direct the right marketing and sales promotion to the right target.

As a result, most of the efforts are wasted. Failure to monitor what is working and which one is not, especially when several strategies are employed complicates the matter.

Joshua, a frustrated man, narrated to me that he had a dozen sales people in the field, has invested in sales promotion through online and offline platforms but was not satisfied with the results.

He felt let down by his sales team.

Just a peep into the nature of Joshua’s business and his customer’s buying process indicates that he was using the wrong selling technique.

He was directing his message to the wrong target. It was easy to make the mistake because he knew his consumers and customers. What he did not know is that his customers don’t make the buying decision.

Essentially there are two types of selling that a firm must carefully consider when designing strategies to promote a business: missionary and competitive selling.

Missionary selling that is suitable for Joshua’s business is an indirect sales technique where the key target is the individual who influences the purchasing decision rather the purchaser.

For example when selling school books, the target is not the students who consume the books or the parents who buy them, it is the teacher who recommends books to buy.

Likewise in the pharmaceutical industry the key target is the doctor who prescribes the drugs rather than the patients.

READ: Value of loving customers more than their money

It is not easy to get direct sales in missionary selling. The purpose actually is not to get instant sales. It is to create awareness, gain trust and goodwill of the influencers so that any time they are consulted they will recommend your products. Thus the effectiveness of sales people cannot be measured by revenue generated.

On the other hand competitive selling involves an aggressive effort by a salesperson to win business from new customers.

The purpose of competitive selling is to convince customers to switch loyalty immediately and buy your products. This works well in cases where the consumer or customer is also decision maker.

In competitive selling, sales people are given target based on their revenue they generate during a certain period.

Equally, when drafting promotion for mission selling do not target the consumers, go for the recommender. Many patients don’t care about the drugs as long as a good doctor prescribes it.